Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Tuesday they would introduce the bill in response to growing ethics concerns about the Supreme Court.
Ocasio-Cortez and Raskin, who serve as the ranking and deputy ranking members, respectively, of the House Oversight Committee, appeared at a committee roundtable on Tuesday to discuss those concerns, telling MSNBC host Chris Hayes that they have considered different “avenues” to hold the Supreme Court justices accountable.
“So the question is not whether Congress has jurisdiction and power over the Supreme Court, but what powers it will use to restrain a fundamentally unaccountable and lawless Court,” Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday night.
“Senator Raskin and I, along with every other member of Congress, will soon be introducing legislation to apply the same $50 gift rule to the Supreme Court that Senator Raskin and I apply to,” she later added.
The Supreme Court has come under intense scrutiny over the past year following a series of reports detailing a variety of undisclosed lavish trips, gifts, and questionable extrajudicial activity involving several justices. These reports have heightened attention to congressional oversight of justices’ behavior and the gifts they receive.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have repeatedly called for passage of legislation to increase oversight of the Supreme Court, a push that began last month when reports surfaced of two flags flying at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, including an upside-down American flag that was flown at Alito’s Alexandria, Virginia, home on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the days surrounding Biden’s inauguration.
“The highest court in the country has the lowest ethical standards. They are the only government officials in the country that do not follow a binding code of ethics. There is no process to hold them accountable,” Raskin said.
“So we need to sort that out. That’s why I said let’s start with something simple that the whole country can immediately intuitively understand,” Raskin said. “We want to ban $50 gifts for Supreme Court justices. They make $300,000 a year. They have to pay for their own lunches, they have to pay for their own vacations.”
Earlier, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters that Democrats plan to unanimously pass a Supreme Court ethics bill on the floor this week, even though Republican senators are widely expected to refuse to comply.
The Supreme Court adopted new ethics rules in November, but Democrats said their impact was hampered by individual justices’ ability to enforce them themselves.
